Housing Bubble, credit bubble, public planning, land use, zoning and transportation in the exurban environment. Specific criticism of smart growth, neotradtional, forms based, new urbanism and other top down planner schemes to increase urban extent and density. Ventura County, California specific examples.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Equity v. Equities

The core of our implosion du jour is that the rest of the world thinks US is too rich relative to their nations and needs to be made poorer now that our ability to raise living standards around the globe is slowing. Sounds simplistic but everything for the last near 40 years has been about establishing social justice/equity. The global warming hoax, NAFTA, free trade, outsourcing, intellectual property theft, on and on all serve the end goal. Now we have a "financial crisis" of global proportions and who gets the bill?

Our masters are pleased. The bit has been set and the plowhorse has not bucked. The Chicomms smile an inscrutable smile having done what Cousin Nikita could not. They have successfully hanged the decadent west with a rope we sold them.

CalculatedRisk writes: U.S. taxpayers may bailout foreign financial institutions and even foreign governments.

The French newspaper Liberation is right, what happened to the good old days when bankers jumped out the window to their deaths instead of walking away with millions? There is no shame, no introspection, no culpability, no apologies. These fools give Osama Bin Laden credibilty.

"In one of the most sweeping changes on Wall Street in decades, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, the last two independent investment banks, will become bank holding companies, the Federal Reserve said Sunday night." Hmm. Expect more market wackiness Monday.

Dawg, I have to agree with Akubi here that you aren't making much sense. Offhand, I think you are now officially trying to get in good with C(onspir)asey Serin by putting out some mildly paranoid ideas. Global warming isn't a hoax. NAFTA is not a conspiracy to impoverish the Americans; consider how little you think of your politicians, then realize that Canadian and Mexican politicans are plausibly worse (plus, we have less muscle in any NAFTA disputes).

As Roger Cohen wrote in the NYTimes today, "Let’s be clear: this is an American mess forged by the American genius for new-fangled financial instruments in an era where the mantra has been that government is dumb and the markets are smart and risk is non-existent. The responsibility for undoing the debacle is chiefly American, too." Trying to ascribe blame to the rest of the world trying to impoverish the Americans is, simply, wrong.

NR

PS Akubi.. with regards to Cheney... that asshole is already a complete dick, no need to add more.

Northen renter,"Conspiracy." Of course not. That's why the picture is of "tinfoil panties." No one set out lower US living standards, they just knew it would be a distinct consequence of free trade in goods and labor.

Global Warming as being marketed is absolutely a hoax. There was some warming 1978-1998 but nothing for the last 10 years. Every single zealot is at a loss to say why. We know why but they so abhor the answer we instead have witch hunts. Galileo had a similar problem. Lex is right, I should have put in AGW instead of just GW because there are indeed some fairly large climates change occurring. Lex is also right that the next administration is going to try Smoot-Hawley II but luckily that genie is out of the bottle and they won't be able to legislate it back in.

Steve Serin is a mechanic, and his shop also buys wrecked cars, salvages them, and re-sells them (you know, actual WORK producing something). His URL was actually something different, containing "Serin", but he heeded commenters' advice and changed it to something that wasn't as toxic on the internet: Salvage.

I've been getting into Dostoevsky lately and I can't resist this little tidbit from his short novel "The Gambler" ... "not only is the Russian incapable of acquiring capital, but also he exhausts it wantonly and of sheer folly. None the less we Russians often need money; wherefore, we are glad of, and greatly devoted to, a method of acquisition like roulette --whereby, in a couple of hours, one may grow rich without doing any work. This method, I repeat, has a great attraction for us, but since we play in wanton fashion, and without taking any trouble, we almost invariably lose."

Unfortunately this is a little less apropros now that I know Casey's brother is apparently a hard working man and quite unlike Stocktard. (BTW, I know they're of Uzbek nationality but they appear to be of Russian ethnicity. I've been to Uzbekistan and it's easy to tell the difference between the groups.)

Young Fliptard™ is in the final innings. His initial fame as the worlds most hated blogger was an accident. He cannot recreate it. That was hiz lastz skillz and now even it is gone. I've got a pretty strong stomach but talk of urine therapy is the new outrage and I cringe at even peeking at what he's doing.

There is a lot of global climate change and humans have something to do with it. That said, termites and natural phenomena absolutely dwarf those human (anthropogenic) impacts. What isn't happening is global warming like we've been told to fear. Do not despair it looks like sunspot cycle 24 may have finally spawned its first child. Six months late and undersized but the current period of extraordinarily low activity would probably be setting records except our instruments have gotten so much better we can detect previously unnoticed events.

The parallels are frightening. The financial markets are the same pseudoscientific mojo we see amongst the climate zealots. Housing only goes up, traffic can only be cured with transit, urban density fixes housing and climate and traffic. People are getting too smart and don't swallow the pill anymore.

Don't know much about history.Don't know much trigonometry.Don't know much about the French I took.Don't know what a sliderule is for.

But I do know a ton about how the kidneys and the intestines work, and Casey's arguments are complete and utter bullshit. If he wants to starve himself and drink urine, so be it. Boy ain't got too much hay in his loft.